Low-pressure gas breakdown in longitudinal combined electric fields

Abstract

This paper contains the complete experimental and analytical picture of gas breakdown in combined electric fields for arbitrary values of rf and dc fields. To obtain it, we continued the study of the discharge ignition modes in nitrogen with simultaneous application of dc and rf electric fields presented in Lisovskiy et al (2008 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 41 125207). To this end, we studied the effect of rf voltage on dc discharge ignition. When we applied an rf voltage exceeding the one corresponding to the minimum breakdown voltage of a self-sustained rf discharge, the curve of dependence of the dc breakdown voltage of a combined discharge on gas pressure was found to consist of two sections. We got the generalized gas breakdown criterion in the combined field valid for arbitrary values of rf and dc electric fields. The calculation results agree with experimental data satisfactorily.

Surface behavior based on ion-induced secondary electron emission from semi-insulating materials in breakdown evolution

“…These parallelisms have been obtained from high γ values emitted by the surface‐dominated cold plasma with the bombardment or photon absorption. However, both this study and the existing studies do not mention the relationship between the increasing of γ ph and the low applied voltages of the breakdown evolutions at the higher values of pd . Therefore, for the electron emission from the different semiconductor materials we conclude that the lower applied voltages of the breakdown with the significant enhancement of γ i levels are remarkably achieved by the surface–ion interactions depending on the value of ϕ .…”

“…This is reasonable as, during the energy conversions from the cathodes, the g values of an InP cathode significantly exceed the g values obtained from GaAs and Si cathodes. For the levels of either g i or g ph , the behavior of the g levels indicates that there are similar directions with [6,[14][15][16]54] for the semiconductor and metal cathodes in the breakdown evolution at the reduced or enhanced values of E/N. In particular, these studies indicated the g ph levels at the reduced values of E/N and the g i levels at the enhanced values of E/N.…”

“…For our results, the γ i formations are in agreement with the results of Refs. . These studies importantly focused on the dependence of SEE on the surface in the breakdown at the various values of E / N .…”

“…They indicated that the contributions of γ i become important for the breakdown evolution at the high values of E / N . Lisovskiy et al presented the high values of γ i in the wide range of E / N in the combined field for the metal cathode. The investigations of SEE for the microplasmas have been performed with ionization processes on the effect of the various cathodes from Paschen curves .…”

Breakdown in hydrogen and deuterium gases in static and radio-frequency fields

“…turning points, in more details see later) have been addressed in several previous works. [8][9][10] Electrical breakdown and discharges in hydrogen have been subjects of intense research due to the wide usage of this gas in a various technological processes: thin-film deposition, etching, cleaning, etc. 11,12 The breakdown in hydrogen has been previously studied both for DC 1,13,14 and RF fields.…”